The Renewable Energy Technology Engineering Essay

Our Sun is the largest known energy resource in the solar system. Solar Power engineerings have been followed by the media because of the involvement in solar power has created in the populace and in scientific circles. Solar power should be pursued merely because the Earth receives more energy from the Sun in one hr than it uses in one twelvemonth. Of the 382.7 trillion terawatts ( TW ) of energy emitted by the Sun in all waies, 120,000 TW reach the Earth ‘s surface. Even with losingss of solar energy to the existence, this represents an tremendous sum of energy. The sum of radiation from the Sun that reaches the Earth ‘s ambiance is called the solar invariable. The solar changeless varies with clip because the Earth follows an egg-shaped orbit around the Sun and the axis of rotary motion of the Earth is inclined comparative to the plane of the Earth ‘s orbit. The distance between points on the surface of the Earth and the Sun varies throughout the twelvemonth. Solar energy produced which are transformed from the heat and visible radiations coming from the Sun can bring forth heat and electricity to provide an increasing figure of places, schools, industries such as mills, refineries, oil-rigs and in the close hereafter be a secondary power beginning for vehicles. Solar energy can be collected by big public-service corporation companies that turn it into electricity for their clients, or individual edifices can be equipped with a solar thermal system to turn heat into electricity.

The solar energy concern appears to keep the most promise of all alternate energies, yet it must over its alone hurdlings to truly compete with oil, coal and natural gas. Like air current and ocean energy, solar energy aggregation requires method of hive awaying the energy until it is needed. Electricity can be hard to hive away ; batteries store little sums but can non yet store the big sums needed by electric public-service corporation companies. Some companies have explored the thought of pin downing solar energy as heat, called solar thermal, instead than electricity because this method is less dearly-won than electrical storage.

In a universe where dodo fuels are running out states taking solar energy as the following option will hold to utilize up big land country to construct immense solar panel arrays in order to bring forth adequate energy to run into the increasing demand. These arrays can be installed in three different ways:

Photovoltaic agreements that focus on the entire energy end product

A big concave dish of solar panels that uses up less country. ( Solar dish Stirling system )

Conversion of solar energy to electrical energy depends on a device called photovoltaic cell, besides called a solar cell. Photovoltaic cells work by capturing the energy in the Sun ‘s radiation, called photons ; the photons so dislodge negatrons from stuff inside the cell and the flow of negatrons produce an electric current. Semiconductor stuffs such as Si act as the best substance for this transition of photon energy to electric current.

Photoelectric consequence depict how negatrons can travel in metals and interact with light. Light is electromagnetic radiation. It was known in the late 1800 ‘s that negatrons could be ejected from a metal exposed to visible radiation, but the consequence is depended on the frequence of the visible radiation. The consequence was called the photoelectric consequence. Albert Einstein used the construct of a quantum of energy to explicate the photoelectric consequence on 1905, the same twelvemonth he published his particular theory of relativity. As a historical note, Einstein received the Nobel Prize for his work on the photoelectric consequence, non for his theory of relativity.

An negatron can non be ejected from a metal unless it has adequate energy to get the better of the work map of the metal. The work map is the smallest sum of energy required to pull out an negatron from the metal. The work map depends on the type of stuff and the status of its surface. Einstein postulated that a hit between an negatron and a atom of visible radiation called a photon could reassign adequate energy from the photon to the negatron to chuck out it from the metal. This negatron is known as photoelectron.

Photovoltaics is an application of the photoelectric consequence we can depict photovoltaics as the usage of visible radiation to bring forth electrical current. We can do photovoltaic cell or photoelectric cell, by puting two semi-conductors in contact with each other. Light reflecting on the photoelectric cell expels negatrons that can go from one semi-conductor to the other.

Photoelectric cells are non beginnings of energy and they do non hive away energy. Photocells transform sunshine into electrical energy. When sunshine is removed, the photoelectric cell will halt bring forthing electricity. An extra system is required to supply the energy when visible radiation is non available. The extra system will be an energy storage system which map like a rechargeable battery when there is light it will be charged up and in the absence of the Sun it will resupply the system.

Solar dish- Stirling engineering:

A solar dish with a Stirling engine uses a solar concentrator to maximise power. The solar concentrator draws the solar energy with the aid of concave-shaped solar aggregators. The ‘dish type ‘ design additions concentration and attendant decreases in heat loss are accomplishable. This type of concentrator will concentrate the solar flux at a point alternatively of along a line as with trough aggregator. As a consequence the accomplishable concentration ratios are about the square of what can be realized with individual curvature, trough aggregators. This type of design will bring forth a big energy end product.

Solar Tower:

A solar tower uses sunlight-heated air to organize an updraft that runs the works ‘s turbine. A aggregations of panels arranged around a tall cylindrical tower will be heating the air beneath them with the heat from the Sun so as to make the require updraft.

The heliostat field is a field of big, Sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats arranged in rings around a cardinal receiving system tower The Heliostat dressed ore sunshine on a receiving system at the top of the tower. The solar energy heats the air inside the receiving system. The heliostats must be able to revolve to optimise the aggregation of a Sun beam directed to the cardinal receiving station. The heliostats orientation will be control by a centum panel in a control room. As the ring of heliostats gets farther off from the tower, the separation between the rings and next, homocentric rings must increase to avoid shadowing one ring or mirrors by an next ring.

The first solar power works based on the solar tower construct was built in the Mojave Desert near Barstow, California in the 1980 ‘s. It uses 1900 heliostats to reflect sunshine to the receiving system at the top of a 300-foot tall tower. The tower design has the possible to multiply the energy end product of the solar panels entirely and it requires no energy.

Parabolic Troughs:

They are a aggregation panels arrayed in long consecutive agreements. This type of design is the most common concentrator design available commercially. Sunlight is focused onto a round pipe absorber located along the focal line. The trough rotates about the absorber center line in order to keep a crisp focal point of incident beam radiation on the absorber. Selective surfaces and glass enclosure s are used to minimise heat losingss from the absorber tubing. This is one of the basic designs which have the capableness of bring forthing big sums of solar power.

Advantages:

The mean electrical power ingestions by worlds are about 15 terawatts a twenty-four hours and the sum of Sun energy making the Earth ‘s surface is about 6000 times the above mentioned figures.

During the solar energy aggregation period by the photovoltaic cells the full procedure is pollution free. Very low care is required as there lesser traveling portion unlike the air current turbines and hydro power. It is quiet and causes small perturbation of land.

PV installings are speedy to put in, apart from the initial apparatus cost the operation and running cost are the lowest among the renewable energy coevals workss. The photovotaic cells can last for several decennaries.

The lone economical pick for energy supply in countries where fuel transit is hard to make and expensive. For illustrations island communities, orbiters, oil-rig platforms and ocean seafaring vass.

Some topographic points uses the Solar Electric Generating System whereby Sun-tracking reflector panels or mirrors are concentrated on tubings transporting heat transportation fluid. This fluid is heated and pumped through a series of heat money changers to bring forth superheated steam. The steam turns a turbine in a generator to bring forth electricity. For drawn-out periods of hapless conditions, solar power workss must utilize subsidiary fuels such as natural gas to maintain the works running. On one of the one-year study, on norm, 75 % of the energy used by the works was provided by sunshine and the staying 25 % was provided by natural gas. They farther reported that solar aggregation efficiencies ranged from 40 % to 50 % , electrical transition efficiency was on the order of 40 % , and the overall efficiency for solar to electrical transition was about 15 % .

Disadvantages:

Solar electricity is seen to be expensive due to the high installing cost. Once a PV system is installed it will bring forth electricity for no farther cost until the inverter needs replacing. Current public-service corporation rates have increased every twelvemonth for the past 20 old ages and with the increasing force per unit area on C decrease the rate will increase more sharply. This addition will ( in the long tally ) easy countervail the increased cost at installing but the timetable for payback is excessively long for most. It takes 40-50 old ages for energy nest eggs to do up for the initial cost.

Solar electricity is non available at dark and is less available in cloudy conditions conditions from conventional photovoltaic engineerings moreover it need entree to the Sun about 60 % of clip. Therefore, a storage or complementary power system is required. This is why many edifices with photovoltaic arrays are tied into the power grid ; the grid absorbs extra electricity generated throughout the twenty-four hours, and provides electricity in the eventide.

Some householders do non like the visual aspect of the solar panels. While the faculties are frequently warranted for upwards of 20 old ages, much of the investing in a home-mounted system may be lost if the home-owner moves and the purchaser puts lesser value on the system than the marketer.

The photovoltaic cell used in capturing solar energy receives photons ( the Sun ‘s beams ) , which silicon absorbs. This action releases an negatron from a Si atom each clip a photon work stoppages. Oppositely charged poles on either side of the cell bring on the negatrons to organize a current. There appears to be no major alternate engineering to the sawn Si wafer as the basic get downing stuff in photovoltaic fabrication procedure. The sawing procedure for fabricating Si wafers from bulk metal bars produces big sums of waste Si pulverization kerf in the signifier of a slurry, presently estimated at 8,750 metric metric tons of Si dad.

This bring us to an environmental issue that we must turn to the chance of used panels deluging landfills and leaching toxic waste into the environment. An highly toxic substance, silicon tetrachloride renders harvests infertile, causes skin Burnss and increases the likeliness of lung disease, and transforms into acids and toxicant H chloride gas when exposed to air.

When a solar faculty outlives its usefulness 20 to 25 old ages after installing, its disposal must be carefully handled to avoid taint from the enclosed chemicals.

Future Development:

The two emerging solar engineerings are Solar movies and Solar orbiters.

Solar Movies:

Standard solar panels contain crystalline Si that must be of a minimal thickness to bring forth an electric current. These solar panels take up infinite atop edifices or on land. Though solar power is quickly deriving land in entire energy production worldwide, some experts in the field believe the engineering may shortly give to new, thinner solar aggregators called solar movies. These flexible solar movies can be constructed to turn over onto a surface similar to wallpaper and replace bulky solar panels with a lower profile visual aspect.

The thin solar movie contains the following four beds: 1 ) A crystalline conducting stuff which will be exposed to the sunshine. 2 ) A buffer bed 3 ) A bed of chemicals such as Cu, Cd, In, Ga and diselenide, which produces electric current from the sunshine. 4 ) The last under lying contact bed.

The interface between the buffer bed and contact bed generates the electric current. Thin solar movie maker are now doing movies incorporating these four beds that measure no more than 100 nanometres thick, or about one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair. This is a fast turning section of the solar power market and they hope to shortly see solar see solar movie rolled out onto roofs, walls and Windowss.

One of import facet of this solar movie engineering is that it will extinguish the dependence on risky stuff Si as its fabrication stuffs.

Solar Saterllites:

Satellite solar power may be the best manner to roll up energy from the Sun and beaming the energy back to endorse to Earth. There will be lesser energy losingss as compared to come up mounted solar aggregators on the Earth surface.

The orbiter -mounted photovoltaic cells would capture photons, and so a device would change over the current produced in the solar cells to radio moving ridges or infrared visible radiation. These in bend will be beamed back to a having aerial on Earth connected to an electrical generating public-service corporation.

The lone set back of the solar orbiter engineering is its expensive set up cost. Expensive visible radiation weight solar panels, are mounted onto the orbiter which holds them. Huge sponsorship will be required to fix a launch vehicle, transmittal and aggregation instruments.